WADA to return to Moscow lab in search of elusive data

Associated PressJan 7, 2019, 5:22 PM EST

MOSCOW — The World Anti-Doping Agency is returning to the Moscow anti-doping lab this week in hopes of obtaining data it did not receive before a Dec. 31 deadline.

The Russians were supposed to turn over the data as part of an agreement to reinstate Russia’s anti-doping agency. But WADA officials were turned away last month when Russia raised a late objection that the equipment they brought was not certified according to Russian law.

A WADA committee is scheduled to consider reimposing the ban next week, but that could be forestalled if WADA’s experts obtain the data during their visit on Wednesday. Russian Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov told state news agencies on Monday “all the technical issues have been straightened out.”

The committee chairman, Jonathan Taylor, says declaring the Russians noncompliant is “a last resort” that is to be pursued only after “every opportunity to comply” has been presented.

Dozens of athletes and athlete groups called for RUSADA’s immediate suspension following the missed deadline.

U.S. Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart said the latest news “appears to be the sequel to the cat-and-mouse game between WADA and Russia we have unfortunately come to expect.”

“We are all holding our breath as to how this one will end come Jan. 9 and whether WADA will be finally given the data on the roughly 9,000 presumptive positive tests results on over 4,000 Russian athletes that hopefully have not been destroyed,” Tygart said.

WADA says the data could be crucial to building doping cases against Russian athletes who doped in past years. Russia has also agreed to turn over stored drug-test samples to be analyzed before a June 30 deadline.

Reinstating the ban could allow WADA to impose tougher penalties on Russia under new rules that could bar the country from hosting major international competitions. RUSADA chief executive Yuri Ganus said Russian sport was “standing on the edge of the abyss” in a letter last month to President Vladimir Putin pleading for the Russian state to cooperate more with WADA.

French Open: Ons Jabeur completes Grand Slam quarterfinal set; one U.S. player left

By OlympicTalkJun 5, 2023, 6:56 AM EDT

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No. 7 seed Ons Jabeur of Tunisia dispatched 36th-ranked American Bernarda Pera 6-3, 6-1 in the French Open fourth round, breaking all eight of Pera’s service games.

Jabeur, runner-up at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open last year, has now reached the quarterfinals of all four majors.

Jabeur faces 14th-seeded Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia or Spaniard Sara Sorribes Tormo, playing on a protected ranking of 68, in Wednesday’s quarterfinals.

Pera, a 28 year-old born in Croatia, was the oldest U.S. singles player to make the fourth round of a major for the first time since Jill Craybas at 2005 Wimbledon. Her defeat leaves Coco Gauff, the 2022 French Open runner-up, as the lone American singles player left out of the 35 entered in the main draws.

The last American to win a major singles title was Sofia Kenin at the 2020 Australian Open. The 11-major drought matches the longest in history (since 1877) for American men and women combined.

Later Monday, Gauff plays 100th-ranked Slovakian Anna Karolina Schmiedlova. Top seed Iga Swiatek gets 66th-ranked Ukrainian Lesia Tsurenko. The winners of those matches play each other in the quarterfinals.

FRENCH OPEN DRAWS: Women | Men | Broadcast Schedule

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Jim Hines, Olympic 100m gold medalist and first to break 10 seconds, dies

By OlympicTalkJun 5, 2023, 6:06 AM EDT

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Jim Hines, a 1968 Olympic 100m gold medalist and the first person to break 10 seconds in the event, has died at age 76, according to USA Track and Field.

“I understand that God called him home today and we send the prayers up for him,” was posted on the Facebook page of John Carlos, a 1968 U.S. Olympic teammate, over the weekend.

Hines was born in Arkansas, raised in Oakland, California and attended Texas Southern University in Houston.

At the June 1968 AAU Championships in Sacramento, Hines became the first person to break 10 seconds in the 100m with a hand-timed 9.9. It was dubbed the “Night of Speed” because the world record of 10 seconds was beaten by three men and tied by seven others, according to World Athletics.

“There will never be another night like it,” Hines said at a 35th anniversary reunion in 2003, according to World Athletics. “That was the greatest sprinting series in the history of track and field.”

Later that summer, Hines won the Olympic Trials. Then he won the Olympic gold medal in Mexico City’s beneficial thin air in 9.95 seconds, the first electronically timed sub-10 and a world record that stood for 15 years.

Hines was part of a legendary 1968 U.S. Olympic track and field team that also included 200m gold and bronze medalists Tommie Smith and Carlos, plus gold medalists Wyomia Tyus (100m), Bob Beamon (long jump), Al Oerter (discus), Dick Fosbury (high jump), Lee Evans (400m), Madeline Manning Mims (800m), Willie Davenport (110m hurdles), Bob Seagren (pole vault), Randy Matson (shot put), Bill Toomey (decathlon) and the men’s and women’s 4x100m and men’s 4x400m relays.

After the Olympics, Hines joined the Miami Dolphins, who chose him in the sixth round of that year’s NFL Draft to be a wide receiver. He was given the number 99. Hines played in 10 games between 1969 and 1970 for the Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs.

He remains the only person to have played in an NFL regular season game out of the now more than 170 who have broken 10 seconds in the 100m over the last 55 years.

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